Board welcomes three new members

SAN ANDREAS - Things got off to a collegial, even friendly start Tuesday as the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors held its first meeting for the year.

Dana M. Nichols

SAN ANDREAS - Things got off to a collegial, even friendly start Tuesday as the Calaveras County Board of Supervisors held its first meeting for the year.

Three of the five board members - Cliff Edson of San Andreas, Chris Wright of Rail Road Flat and Debbie Ponte of Angels Camp - are newly elected.

They join Darren Spellman of Valley Springs, who is halfway through his first four-year term, and Merita Callaway of Forest Meadows, who has served 20 years.

Every vote Tuesday was unanimous, and that was true even on issues that in recent years had bitterly divided the board.

Two years ago, when Spellman was first sworn in, for example, he was part of a 3-2 majority that removed Callaway from her assignment to represent the board on the Calaveras Council of Governments, a powerful body that shapes spending on highways and other transportation projects.

This time, the dance was more graceful as the board voted unanimously to elect Callaway as Board of Supervisors chairwoman and Spellman as vice chairman for the year.

Then Edson and Ponte volunteered to be representatives to the Council of Governments, and the vote to approve that was again unanimous. The board voted to make Callaway an alternate representative to the Council of Governments.

In other business, the board voted to name John S. Blacklock as interim county administrative officer. Blacklock will temporarily fill the void left by the retirement at the end of December of CAO Jeanne Boyce.

Blacklock, currently a consultant, served as Butte County administrative officer from 1992 to 2001. He has also served as an interim administrator to several other cities and counties.

Calaveras officials estimate that the search for a permanent replacement for Boyce will take three or four months.